Sometimes the boat did seem conscious of inconstancy, and anon with
feminine frivolity she would coyly swing round to flirt with the islets
close at hand. She would have her own way until the free breezes came,
and somehow the wind still blows whereso'er it listeth, and will not be
untimely wooed, though the sailor whistles with all the "lascivious
pleasing of the lute."
Some atmospheric phenomenon, altogether beyond idle concern, lifted the
islands afar off out of the water, suspending them in the sky. The
languorous breadths of the sea gradually changed to silver, and under
the purple islands the silver band extended, bright and gleaming, until
it seemed to merge again into the blue of the sky. That was so, for was
it not all visible--the purple islands, with the silver bands separating
them from the sea. Yet under ordinary conditions those very islands are
blue studs set in the rim of the ocean. What magic is it that uplifts
them to-day between the ocean and the sky?
This was a day of gushing sunshine and myriads of butterflies. They flew
from the mainland, not as spies but in battalions--a never-ending
procession miles broad. You could fancy you heard in the throbbing
stillness the movement of the fairy-like wings--a faint, unending hum.
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